The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 107)
April 28, 2003
Gay Incest Bigamy Polygamy Adultery Edition

There was no question about who should top the list this week - step forward Sen. Rick Santorum and his disgusting comments on homosexuality. Bill O'Reilly (2) did his best to keep up with a bit of racism, and Karl Rove (3 & 4) managed to make it on twice this week - once for shameful behavior, and once for idiotic behavior. Elsewhere we have yet another Republican pervert in Richard Delgaudio (5), the Bush Administration (6 & 8) crack the list twice on the topic of weapons of mass destruction, Becthel (7) gets a massive taxpayer-provided windfall, and Jay Garner (10) is obviously letting power go to his head. Enjoy, and as usual, here's the key.

Rick Santorum
Looks like Sen. Rick Santorum could be in a "Lott" of trouble. Last week the third-ranking senate Republican decided that he would take the opportunity to jump on the Republican "demean-an-entire-group-of-Americans" bandwagon and do a little gay-bashing: "...if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." Aside from the class-A homophobia on display here, Santorum also managed to squeeze in an utterly bizarre concept: "I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts.... If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations?" Uh... like, what the hell? So it's okay to be gay, as long as you don't actually have gay sex? There's nothing wrong with being homosexual, provided you're, say, married to a member of the opposite gender and roger them every night? How confusing. Santorum was roundly criticized for his bigoted comments last week by gay rights groups, Senate Democrats, Gerald Ford and Mary Cheney, and, comically, the leader of one of Utah's largest polygamist sects. Most Republicans, however, remained silent on the matter - what a surprise. Santorum has stated that he has nothing to apologize for. But will he eventually follow in the footsteps of the Mississippi Hair Helmet and decide he needs to "spend more time with his family?" We can but hope...

Bill O'Reilly
Speaking of Republicans putting their bigoted feet in their mouths, here's Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly is no stranger to making racist comments - see Idiots 99 for his "wetbacks" comment - and last week he dropped another clanger. According to Joe "Dead Intern" Scarborough on MSNBC, O'Reilly was "emceeing a benefit for disadvantaged school children in Washington, D.C., something that he should be commended for. But apparently O’Reilly found himself filling time before an African-American boy's group named 'The Best Men' were to come on stage. And he said this to the entire audience, quote, 'Does anyone know where The Best Men are? I hope they’re not in the parking lot stealing our hubcaps.'" Whatever the hell O'Reilly was thinking when he made this comment is beyond us, but hey, at least he's demonstrated that from time to time he actually can create a no-spin zone. Look at me, everyone - no spin here - I really AM an ignorant racist asshole!

Karl Rove
Shadowy presidential adviser Karl Rove usually manages to stay out of the spotlight enough to avoid making it onto the list. But not this week. The New York Times recently revealed the Republicans' 2004 campaign plans for George W. Bush, and apparently by staging the latest Republican National Convention in history, Bush will be able to "begin his formal campaign near the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and to enhance his fund-raising advantage." Now forgive me, but aren't these the same sick bastards who accuse those who want to investigate 9/11 of "politicizing" the terrorist attacks? And now they're not just holding the convention in New York, they're actually announcing that they're going to cynically use 9/11 for Bush's presidential campaign. Absolutely sickening.

Karl Rove (again)
But it looks like Turd Blossom's strategy may backfire in more ways than one. According to the Associated Press, "Unless Alabama's election law is changed, there could be one notable candidate missing from the state's 2004 presidential election ballot - President Bush." Yup, it turns out that Alabama's deadline for certifying presidential candidates is August 31 - two days before the GOP will hold their convention to announce their nominee. And now the Republicans are having to grovel to the Democratically-controlled Alabama state legislature, asking them to change the law so that their nominee can get on the ballot. Wow - Republicans want to change the law to give themselves a political advantage? How strange! Surely they wouldn't want to do that? After all, the law is the law, right? Amusingly, if the GOP doesn't manage to change the rules to get their guy on the ballot then Dubya will have to run as a write-in candidate. And since many of his voters presumably have problems with writing, that could be a big problem.

Richard Anthony Delgaudio
Richard Anthony Delgaudio is a prominent Republican fundraiser and president of the Legal Affairs Council, "a group that helped pay the legal bills of former Reagan administration officials Oliver L. North and Caspar W. Weinberger after they were charged in connection with the Iran-contra affair," according to the Baltimore Sun. And as of last week, he's also a convicted child pornographer. Delgaudio took "lewd photographs" of a 16-year-old girl he met in a Baltimore park - some of the photographs showed him having sex with the girl. He also allegedly had sex with and took photographs of a 15-year-old. Delgaudio was sentenced to a mere two months probation after crawling to the judge, saying that he didn't know the girls' ages (police beg to differ) and promising to donate $5,000 to "young mothers who are in distress and in need." Incidentally, he was once quoted as saying that Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people." What an incontrovertible scumbag you are, Mr. Delgaudio.

The Bush Administration
As we can see, the Bush administration is doing a great job finding all those weapons of mass destruction they claimed were poised and ready to blow up, irradiate, infect, and poison the United States. They're doing so well, in fact that they recently snubbed the UN's offer to help look for WMD. Ari Fleischer said last week that the US has "taken on responsibility" for finding any weapons, and that Hans Blix and the UN inspection team can take a hike. Which is handy, because if they do happen to "find" WMD, there won't be any meddling independent observers to confirm exactly where they came from. How convenient. By the way, does anyone else find it ironic that the Bush administration is pleading for more time to find any WMD? Funny - when it was the UN's job to find the WMD, the Bush administration was standing next to them, looking at their watches, and coughing loudly.

Bechtel
So who's going to cash in big time on the War in Iraq? The Bechtel corporation for one, who won a government contract to repair the damage we did over there. Of course "won" isn't exactly correct, since bidding for the contract was secret and limited to a handful of companies. "Handed" might be a better word. Did we mention that Jack Sheehan, a Bechtel senior vice president, also sits on Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board? Or that earlier this year Dubya appointed Riley Bechtel - Bechtel's chairman - to the Export Council, which advises the president on international trade matters? Or that George Shultz, secretary of state under Ronald Reagan, is the former president of Bechtel? Well, it's probably not important. So let's just get this straight: we spend billions of taxpayer dollars blowing large holes in Iraq, and then we give billions of taxpayer dollars to the friends of the people who made the holes, to fix them. I'll give you one guess who's getting screwed over in this deal, friends.

The Bush Administration (again)
Good news! It was reported last week that the Energy Department said that "the United States has regained the capability to make nuclear weapons for the first time in 14 years and has restarted production of plutonium parts for bombs." Well hoorah! Said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "to the average U.S. citizen, it would be accurate to say we have restarted the production of nuclear weapons." Yippee! Now North Korea will be sure to take us seriously when we tell them to stop making nukes. And in case you were wondering, it costs about $6 billion a year to get this program back up and running, which is 50 per cent more than we were spending on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. That $6 billion could buy an awful lot of schoolbooks. But then I guess when it comes to the choice between leaving no child behind and throwing sanity to the wind, it's Whoosh! Goodbye sanity! Have a nice flight!

Lynn English High School Administrators
Here's a fine way to teach the youth of today about the great American values of freedom and liberty. The head of the English Department at Lynn English High School in Massachusetts recently approved an English teacher's request to show Bowling for Columbine in class. Not so fast! Administrators decided to prevent the teacher from showing the Oscar-winning documentary because it contained anti-war views. The ACLU of Massachusetts has condemned the move, saying in a press release, "No reasonable pedagogical purpose supports this censorship for students who can vote or serve in the armed forces very soon." John Reinstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said, "What will come next? Think of all the famous literature that could be viewed as expressing antiwar messages." Think All Quiet on the Western Front, Red Badge of Courage, Slaughterhouse Five, Johnny Got His Gun, Catch 22. Yup, those high school administrators really know a thing or two about educating the kids on freedom of speech and democracy: if it disagrees with the official government line, we'll censor it...

Jay Garner
And finally, Jay Garner, the current King of Iraq, had some words of praise for our great leader last week. Referring to Vietnam, Garner said, "If President Bush had been president, we would have won." Uh-huh, okay. I think I see how this works: if Dubya had been in charge at the battle of Little Big Horn, he would have brought those Indians to justice. If Dubya been in command at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he would have the crushed the Japanese attack with a surprise ambush. And if Dubya had been president on September 11, 2001, he would have... oh, right. See you next week.